“Love is wanting to be with someone all the time.It is accepting the other person with all good qualities and bad and not wanting to change any of them. It is wanting to give affection and approval and comfort and everything that is oneself,demanding nothing in return. It is - love is very difficult, Julia. It is an ideal, rarely achieved in reality because we are all selfish and imperfect beings. It is a dream, a goal, something to be aimed for.”

Welsh-Canadian novelist, historical romance

Mary Balogh is a Welsh-Canadian novelist, born and raised in Swansea, known for her historical romance. She moved to Canada in 1967 to begin a teaching career, later settling in Kipling, Saskatchewan, where she became a school principal. Her debut novel was published in 1985. Balogh writes historical fiction set in the Regency era, or more broadly in the Georgian period, and her work is rooted in that setting’s social codes, relationships, and changing manners.